


Maybe a Phoenix

by Starling_Strider



Series: Anything Nori [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Erebor, I hope, POV Nori (Tolkien), just a oneshot, nori feels, spymaster nori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starling_Strider/pseuds/Starling_Strider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three things Nori's been called, his thoughts on them, and a little insight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe a Phoenix

A woman in the South had once called him firespirit, practically cooing the word at him like it was the greatest compliment she could give.

Nori thought it was one of the cruelest things he'd ever been called.

Dwarves were not meant to be fire. They were supposed to be stone. Earth. Gems. Precious metal! Fire they worked with, fire was their treacherous and ever betraying friend, but they were not its kin. They did not have it flowing through their veins or made into their skin or aching in their bones. It helped them create their precious things, their heirlooms to be passed on from generation to generation, but that's not what Nori thought of when he heard the word. To him, fire meant dragons and the scent of burning flesh and hair. It meant screams from mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandparents, brothers and sisters, children who just could not find their amad or adad or any family to speak of. It meant sleepless nights filled with tears from his mother and stories from Dori about his father, the guard who'd died trying to protect the Mountain from Smaug.

The guards of Ered Luin said he was like smoke.

Nori thought that was one of the most insulting things he'd ever been called.

Smoke was easy to track. It left a trail, it always left a trail. Sometimes it wasn't always easy to see, especially in cloudy skies or through the sun, but if one really wanted to it could be tracked. Nori didn't leave trails unless he wanted to leave trails. And he was not nearly as cruel as smoke when it came to killing people, when he had to kill people that is. Smoke got into a person's lungs and sat there. Made them sick but only slowly. So slowly that by the time one noticed they were sick it was too late, the smoke had claimed them….It had claimed his mother. Years after Erebor, years after Ori was born. The smoke had gotten in and it had never left. It did the same thing to almost every survivor of Erebor. So many children were lost that first year. More the next. Some in Dunland, though not too much since it was still only settling when the dwarves stayed there. Then a lot once they got to Ered Luin, enough years having passed. There was a whole section of the mountain devoted to just deaths caused by the dragon made smoke.

A dwarrow called him ash once. Cause he was the only thing that ever seemed to remain when destruction passed through a place.

Nori wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not.

Ash, even to dwarves, was a symbol of new life to come. Even in their mountains they'd heard myths of phoenixes, birds that rose from ashes to live another life. And ash _was_ always the thing left behind. But it wasn't the thing left standing. It was the result of the destruction. Maybe that was fitting. Nori's amad had always said he felt things deeply. Perhaps when destruction passed through it left a mark on him, a reminder of what had happened. But…Nori remembered ash. He remembered how it stung his eyes, brought more tears to them. How it got caught in some mouths and how a dwarf would seem fine just trying to spit it out until they figured out what that ash was. Because there wasn't enough wood in Erebor where the dragon had attacked to send this much ash dancing through the wind. There wasn't enough wood. So this ash was their neighbors. And their friends. And their kin. And—Nori remembered several dwarves dropping to the ground and vomiting. He remembered some screaming in horror. He remembered crying. He remembered.

Gloin called him fire on the Quest for one reason or another. Bofur, Bombur, and Bilbo, those around at the time, had whole heartedly agreed.

Nori started to consider that maybe fire wasn't so bad. If another dwarf who'd been there, been at Erebor when Smaug attacked, could say it and mean it as a compliment then _maybe_ it wasn't so bad.

Years later, Dwalin would whisper that Nori was his flame. His fire. And Nori would think it was the best thing he'd ever heard.

He'd never truly understand of course why it was a good thing. Those who understood it themselves either didn't have the talent to put it into words or the courage to say it aloud so he would never know. Never know that, in part, it was due to his energy. The way he blazed through life, facing it all head on. He would never understand that it was because of his warmth. The way he brightened a room when he entered it, the way he made his brothers feel loved even when they were angry with him or with someone else or simply just upset, the way he loved in a way that was like fire on its own, blinding and all consuming. He wouldn't get that it was also because of his rage, the way he destroyed everything in his path when he was in a temper with a viciousness that shocked everyone, and his resilience, surviving despite what the world threw at him like a good fire against water and harsh winds.

Some would call him smoke again, whisper it in awe or growl it in fury, and Nori would think it was a good thing he was, in his line of work.

He wouldn't get that it wasn't just because how easily he could slip through people's fingers. He would never understand that just because he thought it was easy to follow smoke others found it impossible, that others thought smoke disappeared into nothingness after a second. So he would never know that when they called him smoke they were paying him a compliment, whether they growled it or not, because one second he was there, plain as day, and the next he wasn't.

No one would ever call him ash again. But years later, after a certain war involving yet another hobbit and yet again that curious little golden ring, he'd think back on the dwarrow who had called him it and think it had definitely been a compliment. Because war touched him, left its memory behind in new scars and new aches and new empty places at tables, but he was fueled by it. He helped in the healing rooms, worked on the projects for reconstructing the damaged parts of the Mountain, assisted the families who had lost the most, sent out his underlings to listen for any rumors of more threats to come so they could be prepared even in their weakened state. He was the memory of the destruction that had reigned upon them all, but he was also the new life that formed afterwards, the reconstruction.

Maybe they should have called him Phoenix instead of Spymaster.


End file.
